Pet of the Month – Poppy

Birkenshaw – February 2018

Poppy has been a frequent visitor here at Yorkshire Vets over the years. Back in 2015, she began to experience problems with her ears. She was also scooting her bottom along the floor. These problems were intermittent, to begin with, but became more frequent as the year went by. As the primary recurring issue was related to Poppy’s ears, we booked her in for an anaesthetic to fully clean them out and conduct a more thorough examination. While the ear canals were inflamed and we were able to clear out some discharge, there was no easily identifiable cause for Poppy’s problems. At this stage, we recommended that allergy blood testing may be the next best step for Poppy. These blood tests came back clear.

Over the next two years, Poppy’s problems came and went. For much of this time, she had no problems at all but did suffer from occasional flare-ups. As and when these flare-ups occurred, we trialled her on a number of different medications. Unfortunately, none of these proved to offer a permanent solution. At the end of 2017, Poppy came back to see us again. She had suffered from another recurrence of her itching which, by this time, had begun to cause issues with her paws in addition to her ears and bottom. The itching had become so severe that we recommended a repeat allergy test. Allergies can develop over the life of a pet and we hoped that a second test would be more revealing than the first.

Aural Haematoma

A few days later, as we waited for the allergy test results, Poppy came back to see us having developed an aural haematoma. This is a condition in which the blood vessels in the ear burst and cause the ear flap to fill with blood. This is quite a common problem in dogs with ear infections, as repeated head shaking can trigger the condition. We booked Poppy in for surgery the following day to drain and repair the haematoma. Poppy’s allergy test results came back to reveal that she had borderline reactions to a number of different allergens. We were recommended that a special immunotherapy treatment was produced to help protect against these allergens in future.

Following successful surgery on her aural haematoma, we have now ordered Poppy’s special immunotherapy vaccine. We will begin administering this as soon as it arrives and we hope that this will finally resolve her itchiness. After such a lengthy period of treatment, we think Poppy is particularly deserving of our Pet of the Month award. Well done Poppy!